WAYNE O'LEARY

Unsportsmanlike Conduct at the Olympics

There was plenty to grouse about in last month's Sydney Olympic
Games: the scripted US television coverage, relayed long after the
actual events transpired and lacking any real spontaneity; the
ratings-driven overemphasis placed on women's sports by designated
telecaster NBC, featuring endless hours of pre-pubescent female
gymnastics at the expense of traditional male events; the wretched
new styles in track and swim wear, which made runners look like
swimmers and swimmers look like they had donned longjohns by mistake;
the continued proliferation of pseudo sports, such as synchronized
diving and trampolining, that tended to dilute the purity and essence
of the occasion; the insistence of numerous athletes and their
coaches on using performance-enhancing drugs, thereby turning some
events into contests between pharmaceutical firms.

There were stunningly moving moments as well, many of them
provided by the Australian hosts. The first was the opening day's
arrival of the Olympic torch, featuring Aussie heroes and heroines of
past games, many of them slowed by age and illness but possessed of
unquenchable spirits; the appearance of 1956 golden girl Betty
Cuthbert in a wheelchair brought tears to the eyes. Then,
highlighting the games, there was the women's 400-meter final, won in
spectacular fashion by Australian aborigine Cathy Freeman, the
epitome of grace under pressure, who seemed to float on air despite
carrying the weight of an entire nation on her shoulders. And who
could forget the Australian fans, fervid but fair-minded, and
enthusiastically attentive to the most mundane events and the
lowliest athlete; they proved that the spirit of the Melbourne Games
of 1956, often considered the century's best, is not dead.

But what of the Americans? To be sure, we had our moments -- many
of them if you measure national impact by medals won, a category
where the US continued its latter-day dominance. In terms of
personifying the Olympic spirit, however, the team that brought home
97 medals, 39 of them gold, left a little to be desired.

There were exceptions, of course: The performances of swimmer
Lenny Krayzelburg and Greco-Roman wrestler Rulon Gardner were
especially memorable, both in terms of athletic excellence and
personal deportment; they won the gold with displays of rare
excellence -- a thrilling upset in the case of Gardner -- and
accepted victory with refreshing modesty and respect for their
vanquished rivals. Too many other members of Team USA, though, left a
lingering bad taste in the mouth, despite success in the arena.

From the opening ceremony, when they marched in mugging for the TV
cameras like an audience from the Jerry Springer show, this nation's
best managed to revive memories of the Ugly American of Cold War
days. Over the course of the competition, Team USA's rogues' gallery
came to include the following: a hurdler who taunted the slower
finishers behind him; a male swimmer who bragged he would "smash" his
opponents (and then, thankfully, lost); a female swimmer who spat in
her chief competitor's lane; a wrestler who wouldn't shake hands with
his victorious opponent; a male gymnast with tattoos, earrings, and a
bad attitude; successful relay runners who assumed
self-congratulatory and tasteless poses after their win; and last but
certainly not least, a trash-talking basketball team of overrated NBA
all-stars who couldn't bring themselves to acknowledge the good play
of their opposition, even when they nearly lost to tiny
Lithuania.

Except for the classy and knowledgeable Bob Costas (the best
around at what he does), NBC's interviewers and commentators tended
to excuse this boorish behavior as the enthusiasm of youth: They
didn't really mean it, after all; just exuberant and competitive
young people, don't you know. Actually, that magic word "competitive"
may hold the key to the behavioral lapses in Sydney.

Sport doesn't exist in a vacuum; it's a reflection of society at
large. Americans have gone through two decades (the 1980s and 1990s)
that celebrated ruthless competition in all aspects of life,
especially the economic. A maturing generation has been taught that
it lives in a dog-eat-dog, devil-take-the-hindmost world, where you
strive to win at all costs and by any means, and where you regard
your competitor with thinly veiled contempt. This is true whether the
competition is on Wall Street or in a sports venue. Sadly, our young
athletes have learned the lesson well.

The international Olympic movement hasn't helped matters any by
its eager acceptance of commercialization. The quadrennial games,
which used to be sponsored by governments and nonprofit athletic
associations, are now brought to us by corporations, a change that
began with the Los Angeles show-biz extravaganza of 1984. In Sydney,
advertising logos were everywhere, not least on the uniforms of the
athletes themselves. Along with corporate logos come corporate
values, including the corrupting idea that winning is absolutely
paramount and that just taking part and competing well, the romantic
ideal of Olympics long past, is so irrelevant as to be laughable.

It's been nearly three decades since American Avery Brundage, avid
opponent of commercialism and celebrator of the amateur spirit in
sport, ran the International Olympic Committee (IOC) with an iron
fist. Brundage was a tyrant; his paternalistic treatment of athletes
was especially reprehensible. Yet, something was lost with his
passing that needs to be recaptured. The deterioration of the Olympic
spirit that many American participants exemplified with their
behavior in Sydney should be addressed.

At the international level, the IOC's announced crackdown on drugs
in athletic contests is a good beginning. Weaning that governing
organization from its own excessive reliance on corporate money would
be even better. At home, an attitude adjustment by American athletes,
enforced by their coaches, is in order, and it could be implemented
immediately, given the will.

A true, long-term change of perspective by US Olympians, however,
probably won't come about until we undergo a substantial change in
our overall value system. That will take a little longer in the
current atmosphere of national superpower hubris, but it's not an
impossible goal.